Saying ‘I do’ with Marriott in style

Marriott has launched a new programme called ‘Shaadi by Marriott’ to tap the growing Indian wedding segment. Neeraj Govil, Area Vice President–South Asia, Marriott International, elaborates on how the group’s innovative concepts and partnerships help them ace the wedding market.

ANUPRIYA BISHNOI

Q How is Marriott involved in the wedding segment?

The premise behind the campaign ‘Shaadi by Marriott’ is to show that we have our fair share of the burgeoning wedding space. This is a segment we have been interested in for a very long time. There are two reasons for that—the first is that we are looking to attract domestic tourists and ensure we endear ourselves up to them. Secondly, we are a global player and the largest hotel company in the world. We are confident that if people can understand and value what we do in India when they travel outside India, they are likely to stay at a Marriott property. We see this as a way to grow our share of wedding business in India.

Q Would this mean that you’d do away with the external wedding planners?

We are not doing away with them, we are working in partnership with them. If a consumer wants to work directly with the hotel, we are more than happy to work with them. We are working with a lot of wedding planners across India. The whole idea, from an operations perspective, is about planning to be able to cater to all sorts of weddings. We are now putting bridal rooms in our properties. We have also put specialist wedding planners in our hotels. We are getting the food tasting done for a wedding at the clients’ homes, instead of them coming all the way to the hotel. This personalisation has been very well accepted by our guests. We also launched a campaign towards the end of last year which stated, “If you do your wedding at a Marriott, we will take care of your honeymoon.” We are trying to be a one-stop-shop for weddings, but this is not at all about getting rid of our partners.

Q How strong is Marriott in the MICE segment?

A large portion of our business comes out of MICE. Most of the JW Marriott properties have large banqueting spaces, both indoors and outdoors. Even our resort locations are big in MICE. We understand the value of this sector and as we are moving ahead with designing our future hotels, we are making sure these hotels are designed in a way that they facilitate movement of larger groups without meddling with the operations of rest of the hotel. We are also keen to be close to large convention centres. For instance, Aerocity has a large convention centre planned that makes it a great place to be. We are also going to open an Aloft in the same location. Growth, for us, has been phenomenal, despite demonetisation. We have also seen a significant amount of increase in our weddings and are looking for a double-digit growth in this segment.

Growth Story of North

For Sanjay Sharma, Market Vice President – North India and Nepal, Marriott International, the North India market is phenomenal currently. “If there is a bit of sluggishness in terms of inbound tourism, it is because performance in Rajasthan has been sluggish. On the contrary though, Rajasthan has achieved phenomenal numbers in comparison to last year because of domestic tourism. The wedding segment has also grown in leaps and bounds from the domestic market.” He claimed that Delhi-NCR has been the best performing city in North India for them. “Also, Lucknow is among the top markets for us. Remote locations like Jaisalmer have also done very well. One city that we would love to see doing well is Srinagar,” he added. In terms of new additions, he revealed that after opening Four Points By Sheraton in Srinagar, they will be opening four more hotels by the end of the year. “We have JW Marriott coming up in Jaipur, Fairfield in Jodhpur and Amritsar, and a Marriott in Indore,” he concluded.

“We are now putting bridal rooms in our properties. We have also put specialist wedding planners in our hotels. We are getting the food tasting done for a wedding at the clients’ homes, instead of them coming all the way to the hotel” – Neeraj Govil, Area Vice President–South Asia, Marriott International.